HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know, mostly I like episodes that encourage people to show their breasts. You know?
MARCUS PARKS
You're getting it done right up top, aren't ya?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Boobies. Male, female, dog.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I really wish more of our material... I'll see a dog's tits.
BEN KISSEL
I know you will.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I see dog's tits every day of my life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He loves to. And he loves every second of it. And the many pictures-
BEN KISSEL
Hey Georgie, it's time for your mandatory belly rub.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I give her belly rubs all the time. She's a little girl, so she has tits.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you are the one who's saying stop sexualizing corgis. Georgie's tits are for Georgie's babies that she's not having.
MARCUS PARKS
That's right.
BEN KISSEL
I actually have some big news from the Kissel household but I don't want to hear your humor about it. But we'll start the show first. Welcome to the Last Podcast on the Left.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What do you want to share?
BEN KISSEL
Big news in the Kissel household. Jerry now comes when I call him. And no, he doesn't ejaculate!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You did that. Again.
BEN KISSEL
No. I went to sleep thinking if I say Jerry comes when I call him, Henry is gonna be like he ejaculates?
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
So I nullified that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He has really been taking and assuming my reactions recently.
BEN KISSEL
I'm ChatGPT for you.
MARCUS PARKS
I think the word projection is coming to mind.
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm feeling some projection here.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm feeling some projection.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because today's episode is all about how breasts need to be covered. This is about hiding tits.
MARCUS PARKS
Protected. Let's say protected.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Protect your tits.
BEN KISSEL
All right. Welcome to the Last Podcast on the Left. Ben hanging out with Marcus, hanging out with Henry. And the newly just wow, this new philosophy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
That breasts need to be covered as opposed to revealed for the world to see.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean normally show them, flop them out, I wanna see them, I wanna see other people sucking on your tits. If you want to get rid of your own breasts, great, you could do whatever you want to them.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean I'm personally in a bit of a breast renaissance right now because I've been watching a lot of 70s movies. I watched this movie The Vampire Happening the other night that I absolutely adored.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
No less than 15-20 pairs of breasts in that movie.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I watched this movie with Donald Pleasence called The Mutations.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
Three pairs of breasts in that movie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
It was the 1970s update to Freaks and yet they still managed to put three pairs of breasts in it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what bumped to the top of my looking at boobs search list recently? Tawny Kitaen.
MARCUS PARKS
Interesting.
BEN KISSEL
There you go. Well isn't that exciting? What a great-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this episode-
BEN KISSEL
This episode, yeah. How does it tie into the episode?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just gotta get it out. A lot of this episode I'm gonna be forced to be silent.
BEN KISSEL
Okay good.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
By Marcus.
BEN KISSEL
Wow!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because a lot of this involves really intense breast attacks. And not in a way I like a breast attack.
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is 6, 3 angles coming and I go whoa!
BEN KISSEL
Whoa whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a fun breast attack.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this is the opposite of that.
BEN KISSEL
You gotta pay double for that. All right, today's episode, you wanted blood? Well you're gonna get it. The Chicago Rippers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Remember, you asked for this.
BEN KISSEL
You asked for it.
MARCUS PARKS
The Chicago Rippers, aka the Ripper Crew were a gang of four psychopaths who murdered up to 20 women in Chicago over the course of just a year and a half during the early 80s, in a criminally underreported and largely forgotten crime spree.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think it's largely underreported because it's extremely unpleasant and most of it can't even be portrayed on television.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
So you're sitting there, you're alone right now, and you have to remind yourself even these guys had friends.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
So get out there and find your own Ripper Crew. But make it like about bowling.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
We're the Ripper Crew, we play pool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When I meet the Chicago Ripper Crew, I hope it's a bunch of guys who all like fart songs.
BEN KISSEL
Polka farts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That would be incredible. But this again, opposite.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Ripper cases are so named because they share features with the infamous Jack The Ripper case of 1888, that is to say they usually involve the extreme mutilations of sex workers. But while Jack The Ripper is arguably the most famous series killer to ever exist and Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, he's been burned into the British consciousness since the early 80s, the Chicago Rippers, they hold no such distinction in even local history.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, Chicago doesn't want to claim them.
BEN KISSEL
Weird.
MARCUS PARKS
See Jack The Ripper gets his place in the history books because he was the first modern serial killer. And the Yorkshire Ripper case only got serious investigative power after Peter Sutcliffe started murdering members of so-called a polite society, non sex workers.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
The Chicago Rippers however focused mostly but not exclusively on sex workers, which makes the lack of press coverage during and after the murders both baffling and predictable.
BEN KISSEL
I also want to say this, there's nothing more polite than sucking somebody off when they're stressed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Seriously.
BEN KISSEL
So thank you sex workers, thank you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just incredibly polite.
BEN KISSEL
Thank you for keeping all of those South Dakota farmers when they go to Vegas for that weekend-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Thank you for stopping them from murdering their family for three years when you stomp on their balls.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's incredible the work that you do and it's unfortunate the way these people come at you. And I think we brought this up recently.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Don't come at me with that.
BEN KISSEL
Don't come at me with that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Learn that, sex workers. Embrace it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
They know that.
MARCUS PARKS
Well out of the 20 some odd killed by the Chicago Rippers, 4 weren't sex workers. One however wasn't a woman and was killed in a random shooting but three were still the sorts of victims who usually get both press and police attention, secretaries and the like. Not to mention the fact that they were white women. And to that point, perhaps the reason why there wasn't such a massive sense of urgency was that the vast majority of the victims in the Chicago Rippers case were black sex workers, who historically have the least amount of investigative power placed into their murder investigations.
BEN KISSEL
Talked about that for years.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This process of looking for the Chicago Ripper Crew was decidedly lay and they weren't caught if it wasn't for a piece of truly just luck was how they were caught.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But thankfully they were because a part of also why I think after the fact that these were not reported we brought up is because these crimes are particularly very, very grisly.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But also because the men themselves that committed these crimes, most of what we know, and we've talked about this before, about any serial killer comes from the mouths of the serial killer themselves.
BEN KISSEL
Can't trust them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Trying to put together... But mostly it's because they are, what do we know about serial killers? A lot of their narcissistic tendencies means they want to be in charge of their own storyline.
BEN KISSEL
They wanna be on the cover of the Rolling Stone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. And they want everybody to know their version of the story. These guys have not spoken about these crimes and they also have not admitted that they even did these crimes ever. They have sort of, you'll get to it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they all roll back.
MARCUS PARKS
They roll back but three of them get very extensive with their confessions.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well that's how we know anything.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But then after the fact they're all still saying that they're extremely innocent. They're like no, no, XXX innocent.
BEN KISSEL
XXX innocent.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And of course when it comes to rolling back, we do have to remember Walmart.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
Still rolling back prices to this day.
MARCUS PARKS
Roll back the prices.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
I mean destroying our society.
MARCUS PARKS
At the very least, the ringleader of the Chicago Rippers never admitted to anything and has still never admitted to doing anything untoward despite mountains of eyewitness reports. No physical evidence mind you, but eyewitness evidence.
BEN KISSEL
And I'm just so happy that Samwise was able there to help the ringleader towards the very end when he was like I don't think I can kill this woman!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You see this is why-
BEN KISSEL
And then Sam was like you can kill this woman, I'll carry you!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(British accent) I will kill her for you! This is where you're really important here today, Kissel.
BEN KISSEL
Levity. I'm bringing the levity.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you're bringing the levity.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You really are.
MARCUS PARKS
And I also like that your Frodo was Italian. (Italian accent) I don't a-think I can a-do it, Sam.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly Frodo is a very Italian name. Frodo!
BEN KISSEL
It does sound like pasta, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But actually I'm kind of taken aback we're even doing this because I'm having a hard time kind of concentrating on anything since the loss of Gordon Lightfoot.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I know you've been quite devastated.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) I fou could read my mind, love. What a tale my thoughts could tell.
BEN KISSEL
He also mentions Wisconsin in The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Until this day, I didn't know how many of my friends were Gordon Lightfoot fans.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're Lightfoodheads.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I'm a Lightfoothead for sure. I thought he was dead, otherwise I would have seen him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sundown, that's how Natalie knew to avoid me during quarantine.
BEN KISSEL
(singing) Sundown!
MARCUS PARKS
Sundown?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She'd hear like (singing) sundown, you better take care. When you heard that come out of my office, she just didn't, she knew don't go in there.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. That's half a bottle of whiskey right there. And then a cigar that he has one puff of but then he's like it makes me a little sick.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(coughing)
MARCUS PARKS
Well as we've said again and again because it bears repeating, black sex workers especially in the 80s and 90s, they were the ones most likely to have the letters DNI scrawled on their body bags, meaning do not investigate. And if there's no investigation, there's usually no coverage. And as it was because the investigation and the media attention was so relatively scant during the Chicago Ripper murders, the team of four psychopaths who perpetrated these crimes operated with near impunity-
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
With a horrific perfect glee throughout.
BEN KISSEL
All right. So we gotta ask, Kansas, BTK hot dog squad. We're in Chicago here, the bratwurst boys? How bad were these cops? Were they as bad as the hot dog squad?
MARCUS PARKS
No, well the hot dog squad was-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
At least there was a squad dedicated to BTK's crimes.
MARCUS PARKS
They tried. They very much tried.
BEN KISSEL
I guess tried and failed.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But there was no task force.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
No, there was not. Cause some of the hot dog squad guys like died with the BTK folder on their nightstand.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
They never gave up on it.
BEN KISSEL
Covered in mustard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. It was keeping the water rings from getting on their nice furniture.
BEN KISSEL
You don't want that to happen.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the Chicago Rippers would remove breasts with piano wire and have sex with the wounds, either before or after they tortured the victims with homemade implements. And it was always done in a mobile chamber of horrors that took the form of a customized red Dodge van.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man, can you imagine?
BEN KISSEL
Getting Toy-Box Killer vibes with that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just being around Robin Gecht even just seeing a grand piano and he's like I could cut a lot of tits off with that thing.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then if he saw a harp-
BEN KISSEL
He'd go crazy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He'd be like oh, I don't have anything to dissemble. I don't even have to dissemble it. It's right there.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can just go walk by, walk by fast.
BEN KISSEL
Sounds like our business manager there. Well that's good. Have you seen The Act of Killing, that documentary from back in the day?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I learned that you could kill a lot of people with piano wire and I didn't know that. I mean I knew it but I didn't really know it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And the mob uses it too.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But we know about the victims and what happened to them because three out of the four Chicago Rippers copped to the murders during the investigation.
BEN KISSEL
75%.
MARCUS PARKS
75% ain't bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
75%!
MARCUS PARKS
That ain't bad, that ain't bad. The ringleader however never confessed, meaning that it is highly likely that his body count is much higher.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I utterly, utterly believe that Robin Gecht did a lot more than what he said.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. That was his name. His name was Robin Gecht.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very sissy name.
BEN KISSEL
Gecht.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. He's one of those guys where even as I'm trying to joke around about him and going in for information about him, this guy is in the world of the villains gallery of serial killers, he is in the top echelon when it comes to mean, mean and stupid.
BEN KISSEL
Mean. Interesting.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's an extremely bad guy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right. That's funny, that's a funny term because I don't really think of Jeffrey Dahmer as mean. I think of him as meek and weak and then scared and then horrible.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's the whole thing is that with serial killers the cliche is oh he was always so quiet, oh you would never know. We never knew Dennis Rader was BTK, we never knew that Jeffrey Dahmer was keeping all these people in his apartment.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
With Robin Gecht, he was mean and fucked up and cruel 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, constantly to everyone around him.
BEN KISSEL
With the name Robin, tends to be a little bit more feminine, I wonder if it's A Boy Named Sue situation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean it's psychologically obvious the way he does his crimes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like that's the thing is that-
BEN KISSEL
It's really on the nose, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's super on the nose, it's hack.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that of all the things that make me upset about this story, that's the top.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No creativity? Unbelievable.
BEN KISSEL
I mean it does sound like there was some.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Show not tell.
BEN KISSEL
Great call, great call.
MARCUS PARKS
But before we get into the story of Robin Gecht and his Ripper Crew, great band name-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure, sure.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jesse & The Rippers.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah. Wow.
BEN KISSEL
Is that from Full House?
MARCUS PARKS
Full House, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is all I thought of.
BEN KISSEL
Wow!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like I just see Jesse, he had to do the weird genie outfit because they turned the song that was like a super sweet song, they turned it into a dance clip.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then he had to do a music video and he's like they're selling me out, they're selling us out. You know? I don't remember.
BEN KISSEL
I remember. I do remember that.
MARCUS PARKS
Robin Gecht and the Ripper Crew. Sounds like a great mid 60s Liverpool band.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just seeing Robin Gecht next to the Beach Boys. You know? The Tanners.
BEN KISSEL
That's a match made in schizophrenic hell, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well let's acknowledge our source today before we get into the story. For this two part series, we have 'Deadly Thrills' by Jaye Slade Fletcher.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Deadly thrills! This is very deeply in the world of traditional 1990s true crime.
MARCUS PARKS
This is classic old school true crime supermarket paperback. It's written by a cop. It's got everything you want.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
If I remember correctly, it was actually sent to us many years ago by listener Jessica Shannon, because this book is actually very, very rare. Jessica by the way still runs an awesomely curated morbid subreddit at r/jessicamshannon.
BEN KISSEL
Okay!
MARCUS PARKS
Check it out, she does a great job moderating. Great job. Be nice. Be nice.
BEN KISSEL
Please be nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Please.
BEN KISSEL
That job is thankless and almost impossible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Also we'll just say up top, it's a gold star episode.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We've already done a lot of tit chopping just jokes and it's gonna continue.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well it's gonna get detailed at multiple points over the next two episodes.
BEN KISSEL
They were mostly just breast related, I don't think they were about the chopping.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no but I need to get it out.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I had to figure out a way to get it out in a way that's constructive, entertaining.
BEN KISSEL
Creative.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Creative.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
An overdue thank you to Jessica. And so without further ado, let's get to the story of Robin Gecht and the Ripper Crew. Robin Gecht, it sounds like a little frog, like a toad man.
BEN KISSEL
It does.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It does.
BEN KISSEL
I just hate the way it works.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it's also sad because I hate the fucking way the cops put this too where they're like it's about little man syndrome.
BEN KISSEL
Oh you don't like that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause Robin Gecht was 5'7".
MARCUS PARKS
Well we'll get into that.
BEN KISSEL
All right. Interesting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he was the tall one.
MARCUS PARKS
We'll get into that.
BEN KISSEL
He was the tall one?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And I think it's interesting how much umbrage you take with that.
BEN KISSEL
Really fascinating.
MARCUS PARKS
We're gonna get into that later on.
BEN KISSEL
Marcus never said anything about oh, Jack The Ripper is so thin and so British.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was the unknown, we didn't know who he was.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Well Marcus doesn't complain about that.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean Jack The Ripper was certainly a thin, lithe, quick man.
BEN KISSEL
I did have some anger towards the Ed Kemper episode.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh of course.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. So Robin Gecht was born in Chicago in 1953 into a classic hard luck serial killer environment that never let up during his entire childhood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh boo hoo.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you.
BEN KISSEL
That's right. You said I'm not woke.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm not woke! I'm not woke.
BEN KISSEL
Woke.
MARCUS PARKS
The only love Robin ever got was from his grandmother Sarah, who doted upon her grandchild by saying quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"You are my first grandchild, that makes you special."
BEN KISSEL
Well that's nice.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was the only time anything ever nice was ever said to him.
BEN KISSEL
If you can get the grandmother on your side though, you have the whole house.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who cares? Your fucking pussy is already done, she already did her shit ass work.
BEN KISSEL
No, it's not about that.
MARCUS PARKS
If you remember Ted Bundy had the grandfather, that didn't work out too well.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It didn't.
BEN KISSEL
No, it's about the grandmother.
MARCUS PARKS
Ah I see. But unfortunately Robin was treated as far less than special throughout his formative years.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was kind of more of a joke.
BEN KISSEL
I see.
MARCUS PARKS
His brother Everett was born three years after Robin and his sister Rachelle came two years after that. And since the Gecht home was so small, Robin lost his bed to his two younger siblings and had to sleep on the floor. Soon after, his parents abandoned him to the 'oh he'll figure it out on his own' school of parenting that often leads to let's say bad habits.
BEN KISSEL
It leads to me! And I think it's fantastic.
MARCUS PARKS
What are you talking about? Your mother didn't leave you to your... Your mother actively took you out of school and took you to the Piggly Wiggly. Did she pet your hair?
BEN KISSEL
No, no, she never pet my hair.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. You were raised for a period of time.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You were raised.
BEN KISSEL
No, I know I was raised. I'm just saying yes, I'm a mama's boy, yes, me and my mom, I can go to Piggly Wiggly right now, I can get you all the bags of cereal you want. But what I'm saying is-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're coming straight to you immediately want to support Robin Gecht.
BEN KISSEL
No I don't.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You immediately are trying to-
BEN KISSEL
No I'm not! I'm just saying-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Apologize for Robin Gecht, one of the worst serial killers of all time.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm saying right now-
BEN KISSEL
No, no, no. I'm just saying sometimes when parents are a little bit more hands off, their kids become podcasters or artists or maybe CEOs. And it's not his parents' fault that he became a serial killer.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm starting to notice a bit of a pattern. You really do fall on the side of the serial killers who like to murder in cars. Isn't that interesting?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cars.
BEN KISSEL
No, I don't. I don't.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's because he's a truck guy. It's truck guys.
BEN KISSEL
I'm a Chevy guy. Yeah, I was hanging out with my high school buddies like when did you become a Chevy guy? I was like you don't remember? I'm a Chevy guy. I don't think so, buddy. I was like oh yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All of our cars equally represent us because you drive a car of a house of representative member from North Dakota, you have a lesbian school mother's car, and my car is of a tiny fat producer.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
A Subaru Outback is a very versatile vehicle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's for women that look like Elizabeth Warren and their beekeeper wives.
BEN KISSEL
They do.
MARCUS PARKS
A versatile vehicle for a diverse group of people.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely fantastic. And of course I do love your new bumper sticker that says 'cross the picket line, WGA!'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Hashtag scab artist.
MARCUS PARKS
Now it was perhaps Robin's increasing resentment towards his new siblings combined with his own natural sociopathic tendencies that led to his first experience with death, which also said quite a bit about the attentiveness of his parents or lack thereof.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Pointed.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
When Robin was 6, he, his mother, and his siblings took a trip to the grocery store. And while Robin's mother went inside with Robin's infant sister, she told Robin to stay outside to watch his 3 year old brother, even though Robin was only 6.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See, white trash is international. Because that is such a thing of taking a 6 year old being like hey, watch a 3 year old. You'll figure it out.
BEN KISSEL
That's double the age!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's a double up, I think that's okay.
MARCUS PARKS
What?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God.
BEN KISSEL
It was the 60s!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's completely a different child...
BEN KISSEL
This was the 50s.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's neglected.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's searching for his mother still in many different environments.
BEN KISSEL
Oh please.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He goes to the basketball men and he wants them to be his mother, he wants the wings to be his mother.
BEN KISSEL
I just follow that sweet, sweet sound of giggling.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(giggling) Ben.
BEN KISSEL
Shut up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(giggling) No, Ben.
BEN KISSEL
I did it.
MARCUS PARKS
Now it's unknown whether Robin let events unfold or whether he pushed them along but pretty soon his little brother Everett had wandered out into the street and got hit by a car. What do you think about that now, Ben?
BEN KISSEL
Not good. Not good. My older brother saved me from getting hit by a car because I was darting into traffic, grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me back. So he was not a good older brother.
MARCUS PARKS
He was not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Everett survived with permanent brain damage.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. But he was the fine one.
MARCUS PARKS
No, he got sent to an institution.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no.
MARCUS PARKS
Because the Gecht family was too poor to take care of him at home and he never returned. He just got popped into there.
BEN KISSEL
On of those.
MARCUS PARKS
Probably in the 80s, if he survived till then, just got thrown out into the street.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We used to call it the crisper. Yeah, pop him in the crisper.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, put him in the crisper.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Keeps him fresh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Technically he's lucky.
MARCUS PARKS
Everett?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know that at least he doesn't have to be known as the brother of Robin Gecht.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
True.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he just gets to go and kind of rock back and forth in a room someplace else.
MARCUS PARKS
Well perhaps to fill the Everett-sized hole in their lives or perhaps because the Gechts were just too fucking stupid to stop, they gave birth to another child in 1961, Julia. And another child-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It feels too good to come inside.
MARCUS PARKS
It feels too good to come inside but you gotta wait. You get to do it a couple times a month and that needs to be good enough if you're not gonna be on birth control.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh. I also have no fetish for it.
MARCUS PARKS
It's not a fetish, it's just good.
BEN KISSEL
It's stressful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very stressful.
MARCUS PARKS
Stressful. Well after Julia in 1961 there was another, Joanne in 1964. And it therefore became Robin's job to take care of all these little girls who seemed to come in an endless stream.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
MARCUS PARKS
Robin then had to shoulder even more responsibility when his beloved grandmother died of stomach cancer and his father became ill with an unnamed quote unquote "blood ailment".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Diseases used to be simpler.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. He's got a problem with the blood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's got blood, there's something wrong with his blood.
BEN KISSEL
That's all you know.
MARCUS PARKS
And this was all before Robin was 10 years old.
BEN KISSEL
So there's a lot going on.
MARCUS PARKS
Now while I don't want to get too much into armchair psychology here, it seems to me that Robin's early experiences with the female gender was seen mostly by him as a heavy burden. Robin's entire life revolved around the care of girls and while most men come out of this experience with a deeper appreciation for women-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Or as I say a very healthy amount of fear, which has really helped me being surrounded by women.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah. A feminine touch, you might say. I think Robin's inborn psychopathic tendencies brought about the opposite effect. Instead of love, Robin engendered nothing but hate towards women.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Also just the straight up of kind of this system of he's become a little mini parent, but I've seen a lot of people come from this environment and they didn't start the Chicago Ripper Crew.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
That's what I mean, inborn psychopathic tendencies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sometimes they start record labels. You know what I mean?
BEN KISSEL
Sometimes. There's just something about his height.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is what it is.
BEN KISSEL
Something about his height.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But again it's supposed to fuel your personality.
BEN KISSEL
I think also being his height, he's smaller than a lot of women or eye to eye. So maybe he... Anyway, that's a whole thing. But you know what I have become with women? Neutral.
MARCUS PARKS
That's nice. That's good.
BEN KISSEL
Not happy, not angry. Neutral.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You just sit away. You just sit at Big Wings.
BEN KISSEL
Jerry comes when I call him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Come!
BEN KISSEL
Don't do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He comes all over his fucking ass.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I figured you were gonna do something like that.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Robin was of course a problem child at school, always fighting, stealing, and starting fires, all of which would of course draw the ire of his father, who always even though he couldn't work, he always seemed to manage to muster up enough energy to beat his son despite his blood ailment.
BEN KISSEL
I think he's just a deadbeat.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's about what you like to do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's true.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But when the school had enough of Robin's antisocial behavior, he was sent first to a day school for troubled juveniles. But when he refused to attend of his own volition though, Robin was sent to a troubled teen school for 8 months.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
MARCUS PARKS
Now almost certainly Robin was sent to the Chicago Parental School with the rest of the city's so-called incorrigibles. But as far as troubled teen schools went, this wasn't one of the worst. I looked into the Chicago Parental School, mostly modeled left a military school. No corporal punishment was ever allowed.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
The worst punishment also isn't the best punishment, they would give kids 24 hours of solitary confinement in a well lit, well ventilated room. It's like more of a cool off room.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh, cool.
BEN KISSEL
That's not the worst I've ever heard.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, the crisper.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, the crisper. Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
The crisper. Was Chucky there?
MARCUS PARKS
Chucky?
BEN KISSEL
Part 2! Chucky 2!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
BEN KISSEL
Military school.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nope. Nope. Not at all. No. I'm so scared. Come! (singing) If you could read my mind love.
BEN KISSEL
You were saying, Marcus?
MARCUS PARKS
They did have a school newspaper, it was called The Skipper.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. They had The Gilligan too but that was mostly just recipes for onion soup.
BEN KISSEL
That's actually great.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But after 8 months at the Parental School, Robin was brought home after his grandfather also died. And his aunt quickly followed her father with suicide because she lost both her parents in less than a year. It's again, as I said, it's a hard luck serial killer story. It's just nothing but misery and death and pain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. It sounds like he should have become a graffiti artist.
BEN KISSEL
Very well could be Banksy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Or a shoe designer. Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. It definitely sounds like this is a Child's Play.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See, that's fine.
BEN KISSEL
It's the name of the fucking movie I was thinking of involving Chucky.
MARCUS PARKS
That's the name of the movie, yeah. Well looking for some purpose in life, Robin at the age of 15 began working with his dead grandfather's tools so he could learn enough electrical know- how to repair television sets.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's incredible!
BEN KISSEL
That's great.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, this is 1968. Television sets are on the fritz all the time.
BEN KISSEL
He has literally 35 years of work ahead of him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. By the age of 18, he met a girl whom 'Deadly Thrills' called Judy Carson.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Judy Carson.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
It's the first of many pseudonyms the author used to protect the innocent.
BEN KISSEL
Ah I see.
MARCUS PARKS
Judy gave birth to the first of Robin Gecht's many children.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
But luckily for her, they broke up and she married someone else, leaving Robin far behind.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
So after an extremely short-lived return home in which Robin was punched in the face by his father hours after his arrival-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He didn't want him there.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because again, Robin was a problem.
MARCUS PARKS
Robin was a problem. Robin was violent, Robin was mean all the time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And definitely the first marriage dissolved because of that. He was not very nice.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Robin after that drifted from woman to woman for years until he met and married 17 year old Rosemary McCaffrey in 1975 when Robin was 22. The first child was born a year later and two more children would be born between then and the year in which Robin was caught for the Ripper murders, 1982.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wonder where these kids are. Do you know where his kids are?
MARCUS PARKS
No. I don't need to know.
BEN KISSEL
I think that they would be like that's not my dad.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually yeah, I do know where one of his... One of his kids did get convicted of murder and I think we're gonna be covering that in the next episode. So yeah, these kids did not come out-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Holy shit. Oh they didn't come out great?
MARCUS PARKS
Could be genetic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is it the batter? It might be the batter. A bad pizza starts with the dough.
BEN KISSEL
Well that is true.
MARCUS PARKS
I saw a bad pizza starts with the water. That's what I say.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's the come.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. That's why I've accepted that pizza-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And the flour is the eggs.
MARCUS PARKS
That's why pizza, bagels, bread, and coffee in Los Angeles aren't very good because the water here is bad.
BEN KISSEL
But you know you can get a Chicago style from a spot called Gino's which is close to Chicago.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Honestly the bread can be good.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, the bread can be.
MARCUS PARKS
It can be. If they use filtered bread, if they use tap water, you can tell.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is where you're showing some of her bias but we'll get you your own.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. It's okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now one of the most bizarre coincidences in the Robin Gecht story came from his choice of profession, electrician. And it comes from who he met as a result of that career choice.
BEN KISSEL
The cable guy!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, Jim Carrey features heavily in this.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep. Somebody stop me! No one would.
BEN KISSEL
That's from The Mask though so...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's all they needed.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
See Robin had learned the basics of home repair from his Uncle Roger and he therefore opened his own electrical repair business by 1975. He moved on from TVs, he moved up to homes.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Remember this is Chicago during the late 70s. So if you're doing small time work that involves working with contractors, then there's a chance that you might have worked with PDM and its CEO John Wayne Gacy.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa! I thought we were going mob route.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No dude.
BEN KISSEL
I didn't know we were going John Wayne Gacy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
John Wayne Gacy. We'll see. Was there involvement?
MARCUS PARKS
Well let's unpack it a little bit.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now there's no evidence whatsoever that John Wayne Gacy and Robin Gecht ever killed together, because why would they? John Wayne Gacy killed men in his home and Robin Gecht killed women in his van. Additionally, Gacy was caught in 1978. Robin's murders didn't begin until 1981 or at least provably didn't begin until 1981.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But now I believe it is a fact that John Wayne Gacy had accomplices. We don't know who these accomplices are, we don't know whether or not those accomplices also ended up buried in the fucking basement along with the other victims and we would not know that some of those victims might have been one of his accomplices. But again, tenuous.
MARCUS PARKS
Tenuous, tenuous.
BEN KISSEL
I think if you get murdered you're no longer an accomplice, you become a victim.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well then yeah, you have graduated to victim.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah you have.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well interestingly they did know each other, they absolutely knew each other.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is why I'm saying-
BEN KISSEL
That's so fucking weird.
MARCUS PARKS
Well we'll get to that in a second. But Gecht was almost called as a witness during John Wayne Gacy's trial.
BEN KISSEL
What?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's on the books having been hired by PDM contractors. So he was there at some point. But again, in what aspect?
MARCUS PARKS
In what aspect?
BEN KISSEL
Weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because John Wayne Gacy, could he see that Robin Gecht, was he a little bit too fucked up to even be an accomplice? Is it a guy that you look at this guy and like oh this guy is kind of fucked up.
BEN KISSEL
Too rogue.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We also talk about too, John Wayne Gacy mostly would kind of float so sometimes guys like to relieve each other of their little stresses, right, he used to do the thing.
BEN KISSEL
Oh sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I don't know whether Robin Gecht was like meh, I like tits.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I would imagine if I were to speculate as to why Robin Gecht may have been brought in, I would say it was probably because John Wayne Gacy killed a lot of his own employees. And since Robin Gecht worked with John Wayne Gacy-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They just went through the rolodex.
BEN KISSEL
Gotchu.
MARCUS PARKS
Since Robin Gecht worked with John Wayne Gacy, yeah, he might have been called like that, maybe this guy knows something about an employee that disappeared at a certain point in time. I think it's just a fucking incredible coincidence.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe something to do with the Polish Day Parade.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it always comes back.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe Gecht was organizing all the marching for the Polish Day Parade.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but then it turns out he did it on Italians Day.
BEN KISSEL
Weird.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Henry, I know you're a staunch believer in the theory that John Wayne Gacy had accomplices to the point where you just said it is now proved that he had accomplices.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Proven.
BEN KISSEL
Fact.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Proven fact.
MARCUS PARKS
Although it is not a proven fact.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In the court of Zebrowski.
BEN KISSEL
That's the court of Z.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm the judge.
MARCUS PARKS
In the court of Z, I still believe it's speculation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, sure. I do believe that it's just more likely than not that serial killers with extremely high body counts have some form of accomplices as we've seen with Dean Corll. I think that John Wayne Gacy is very similar as we know for a fact that Henry Lee Lucas was trained by the CIA in order to destabilize the American system.
MARCUS PARKS
Right, the Hand of Death.
BEN KISSEL
The Hand of Death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The Hand of Death is completely real.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's real.
BEN KISSEL
It sounds to me like you have your jumping to conclusions mat out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a jump to conclusions.
BEN KISSEL
And you are jumping to conclusions.
MARCUS PARKS
But what's surprising to me when people talk about the Gacy accomplice theory is that no one ever brings up the fact that Robin Gecht did exactly what Gacy was supposed to have done and he did it in the exact same city at nearly the exact same time.
BEN KISSEL
Jeez.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean it's a great environment for self starters.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I guess so.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. The Ripper Crew was made up of Robin Gecht and the younger employees at his construction business, Eddie Spreitzer and the Kokoraleis brothers, Andy and Tommy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And if there wasn't a bigger bunch of winners you've ever met in your life, it's these incredible young men.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because Andy and Tommy could both together tie one pair of shoes.
BEN KISSEL
Well that's not bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this thing, if you're looking for accomplices, maybe this is John Wayne Gacy now. You gotta go for real stupid.
BEN KISSEL
You gotta go for stupid but capable.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well capable in a way that they're really good at murdering women and helping you murder women.
BEN KISSEL
Well that would be what the job calls for in this case.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this is how all these guys met. Robin and his wife Rosemary were neighbors with the Kokoraleis brothers who came from a Greek Orthodox family ruled by a violent tyrant who would lash his children after he tied them shirtless to a table. Usually he did this for such paltry transgressions as smoking a little weed. You'd get 15 lashes for smoking weed.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa! I better smoke some weed to make that not hurt so much.
MARCUS PARKS
Now we don't know exactly how Andy and Tommy were roped into Robin Gecht's life but it's likely that Robin simply offered them jobs working as handymen at Robin's company.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They were neighbors.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they were neighbors.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you need some work, come work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure thing! You got it, Robin! I can't wait.
BEN KISSEL
I mean that's 90% of it, just being in the right spot.
MARCUS PARKS
That's right, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He saw them outside chopping up a couple of melons.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he's like you're perfect for what I need you for.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And they also babysat his kids.
BEN KISSEL
Oh. That's good. Little kids.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a really large number of serial killers who were also babysitters.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, again, you don't need a lot of references.
BEN KISSEL
Yep. The Adventures of Babysitting XXX.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(gagging)
BEN KISSEL
What?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what Jeffrey Epstein was making on the island.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no, you know we're so close with him, it's Jeff.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God. But didn't Noam Chomsky write that?
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Got him!
BEN KISSEL
You got him!
MARCUS PARKS
Well around 1978 or 1979, the timeline is pretty vague on this one-
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
The fourth member of the Ripper Crew arrived. See Tommy and Andy Kokoraleis had a sister and she had a boyfriend named Eddie Spreitzer. After 15 months of dating though, the Kokoraleis sister moved away and broke up with Eddie and Eddie soon after also lost his job at an auto park store.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When people break up, sometimes you get the other guy.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So it's like in the divorce, we got Eddie.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that nice? We got Eddie. Does he look like Eddie from, oh my god, everyone likes to dance, they like to... Rocky Horror Picture Show!
MARCUS PARKS
No. No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everybody likes to dance.
BEN KISSEL
That's what they do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well desperate, Eddie asked his ex-girlfriend's brother Andy if he knew of any work. Andy fatefully introduced Eddie to Robin Gecht and that solidified the Ripper Crew lineup.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because now you got two lumpy goons.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You got a skinny goon and then you got yourself, because he viewed himself as the sex symbol.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. Now at this point Robin Gecht was 30 years old.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
He was the older authority figure.
BEN KISSEL
That's a little older than I expected him to be.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Eddie was 21 and highly vulnerable, while Tommy and Andy were just teenagers when they came under the sway of this surprisingly charismatic Svengali.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See this is the thing.
BEN KISSEL
Oh this is gross though. Just 30 years old, just hanging out with a goon teenager.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly they all say the same thing, they call him a Svengali.
BEN KISSEL
Oh please.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was his charisma that brought them in. It's like no, they were all just dumber and shittier than him.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he looked impressive to them.
BEN KISSEL
Of course!
MARCUS PARKS
But even then-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's Terry the Gnome if he was a human being.
MARCUS PARKS
You still gotta have a little bit of charisma to sway the dullards.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think you just need to be paying them money to be hanging out with you.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're their boss.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So they're like whatever Robin says, that's what we're gonna do.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they're fucking morons.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And mean obviously and truly just brutal assholes.
MARCUS PARKS
Very mean. They're all very mean.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then Robin Gecht knew that.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he's just being like I'm gonna teach these kids a thing or two about a thing or two. And then it just becomes it's all about touching breasts with knives.
BEN KISSEL
And one person's charm is just another person's turn off. So I don't think that this guy was charming.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know how many people truly consider me extremely charming?
MARCUS PARKS
Charming?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No, he can, he can sing and dance. I've seen him put on shows.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, you know.
MARCUS PARKS
He can sing, yeah. Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I've seen him do it, he's pathetic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh I'm a winner! Always a winner!
BEN KISSEL
You got a lot of talent. We sucked him right up though and we put him right in that chair and all he can do is talk now.
MARCUS PARKS
Well I would actually argue-
BEN KISSEL
Oh also he could break the picket line, don't forget.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I'm not gonna be a scab.
MARCUS PARKS
You could. But I would argue though is that Henry, you're more charismatic than charming.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I'm a Svengali.
MARCUS PARKS
And I would say the same thing about Robin Gecht. He wasn't charming at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So you're gonna say oh that's me and him, that's how we're alike.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I am charismatic, able, strong, always hard.
BEN KISSEL
Yep, I know that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I am far-sighted.
MARCUS PARKS
5'7".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Blood pressure lowered, can sing, dance, triple threat, all right? Been around.
BEN KISSEL
Far-sighted means you can't see close to you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fart-sighted means I can actually see farts in the air.
BEN KISSEL
Dude, I would love to see when someone farted, be like I know what you did. Then you have leverage. It's all about leverage.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Leverage.
MARCUS PARKS
Every time, I love it. Well most people compare Robin Gecht to Charles Manson because both allegedly use their influence to inspire brutal murders, allegedly. That however is not a correct reading. Charles Manson was a bait and switch cult leader.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was charming!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he was charming and he was a bait and switcher. He ultimately just wanted to convince a bunch of 18 year old girls to leave behind the groovy Los Angeles hippie lifestyle of 1968 to go live in Death Valley where they could ride dune buggies all day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you remember we had that, well it's top secret where we got this information from, but we had an inside line who was a very close quote unquote "vague friend", a pen pal of Charles Manson and talked about that, about the cart of Charles Manson was very much just into as much pussy as he could consume.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Then they do say that Tex Watson, I don't think there's a Tex in this story, was truly a great manipulator and has his own cult in prison.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, Robin Gecht is the two combined.
BEN KISSEL
He's Tombo, okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Robin Gecht, he's more of a bullying manipulator.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He found three young men who were highly suggestible and if we're being honest they were not in any way what you'd call bright.
BEN KISSEL
No I think we've established they're really stupid.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They were medically dumb.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Tommy Kokoraleis had an IQ of 77.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And if you listen to him talk, he is definitely spinning. You know what I mean? He absolutely is. But again, there's something about somebody of that mind where he's also like I got nothing to do with this, I didn't do anything, I didn't see anything, I wasn't involved in anything. And you watch and he's Thorazined out of his mind.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Meanwhile you're like no, you did though. But you certainly did.
BEN KISSEL
Yikes.
MARCUS PARKS
Well additionally, besides being a group of dullards-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like how you put this here though, that his IQ is low.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It's like well the thing is about Tommy is that his IQ is low enough to put him in like the mildly mentally challenged category but it's still high enough where he can get a driver's license.
BEN KISSEL
Oh that's good. I'm happy to know that. That explains a lot actually.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes it does.
MARCUS PARKS
A lot of those on the road.
BEN KISSEL
There are.
MARCUS PARKS
But besides being a group of dullards, Robin and his crew were all relatively short, scrawny guys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Scrawny.
MARCUS PARKS
Although not terribly short, we're not talking David Miscavige short here.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
David Miscavige is tiny.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he's tiny.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
They're just short. I mean Robin was, as Henry said, he was the big man of the group. He was 5'7" and around 120 lbs.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I got fucking 50lbs on Robin Gecht.
MARCUS PARKS
You do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm a fucking bruiser compared to Robin Gecht.
BEN KISSEL
That is extremely small.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very slight. Yeah, it's almost the reason why he took four men for them to attack one woman at a time.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. I wonder if that's also part of the psyche where it's like I'm a man, I'm not a woman, I'm a man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he's still in jail and he acts like he hasn't done anything.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. No, it definitely was like a small group of pixies or gnomes or neckers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's Terry the Gnome.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they're all attacking all at the same time.
BEN KISSEL
Jeez.
MARCUS PARKS
All these tiny, weird little guys.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh, that's horrible.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Normally you just see those guys in a band, like in a cover band.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
That's where you should be.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Chicago Rippers.
BEN KISSEL
Exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
Now as far as the right hand man and the Ripper crew went, Eddie Spreitzer said that he hated who he became when he was around Robin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This isn't me, this is nothing like me.
MARCUS PARKS
But even before Robin and Eddie hooked up, Eddie was known to be a disturbing individual.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just was different, I was different to a lot of different people.
BEN KISSEL
Sounds like it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But a lot of other people would say that's unique. When Robin, ugh, bad stuff.
BEN KISSEL
Bad guy.
MARCUS PARKS
Well for example, a guy who knew Eddie from high school said that-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh yeah, I smell the smoked turkey from here. Ugh god.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Sorry, I just had a lot of turkey. Well for example, a guy who knew Eddie from high school said that Spreitzer showed up to prom with his mouth covered in blood. But instead of wiping it off, he enjoyed how much it shocked everyone. And he spent all night bragging that he'd just come to prom after slaughtering animals in the woods for quote unquote "rituals".
BEN KISSEL
Kind of cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know?
BEN KISSEL
I mean that's kind of fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's where he did the thing, he's like again that time, different me.
MARCUS PARKS
Different me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Prom brought horrible things out of me.
BEN KISSEL
Prom is stressful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But there are many things that I can't even be associated with anymore just because of what they bring out of me. Malt shops, can't go because I hate to share, I get enraged. I start start chopping breasts.
BEN KISSEL
Well don't do that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can't even put me near a Monopoly game.
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because next thing I know, you got all the railroads? Guess what, I'm tying you up in a van. I hate myself when I'm playing Monopoly.
BEN KISSEL
Chopping breasts. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now who knows if the prom story it true or not, because the true crime paperbacks of the 80s and 90s, they're filled with stories from high school classmates who always have a fucked up story to tell about the killers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Or then the thing that you thought was super funny back in the day and now that he's one of the Chicago Ripper Crew, you're like well actually now it's kind of gross.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Revisionist history.
MARCUS PARKS
But either way, the fact that it sounds like it could be true certainly tells you that Eddie was at the very least disturbed when he met Robin Gecht during a vulnerable and directionless period in his life. Additionally, if Eddie hated it so fucking much, keep in mind that he could have stopped Robin at any point once the killing began.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Either by going to the cops or even if he wanted to avoid jail, just kill Robin yourself. If you're gonna kill women, why not kill the guy who kills the women and then you won't have to kill the women anymore.
BEN KISSEL
Well just go to the police.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's interesting because we talk about, we did Paul Bernardo and we talked with Karla Homolka and how she in a way, we now know that we believe that Karla Homolka was way more involved than she protested, she doth protested too much about how she was so afraid of Paul. I do believe that she did think she was next and that's part of why she ended up flipping on him in the very end. But when it comes to victims being with somebody for a long time, you could see why. Like if you're trapped in a truly abusive scenario, it really can truly feel impossible to get out.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And also the statistics, we know that the most dangerous time in an abusive relationship is when someone tries to exit. That's normally when things really flare up and things go bad. But when you are one of the other murderers-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You kind of, for me, you lose a lot of the argument of like I was a different person then.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He wasn't his fucking boyfriend.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He was his boss at a part-time job.
BEN KISSEL
You can just quit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you just leave.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that's not that difficult. I'll quit right now. I fucking quit.
MARCUS PARKS
Cool.
BEN KISSEL
I'm back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa! Incredible! Whoa and this is their new reunion episode.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
Awesome. I've also changed a lot, guys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I have.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, so how? In what way? Improv then.
BEN KISSEL
Jerry doesn't come when I call him anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's actually really sad.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that would be sad. He just started a week ago.
MARCUS PARKS
Nice.
BEN KISSEL
Jerry! He came. Don't you fucking do it!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Did it happen in your mouth, in your fucking face?
MARCUS PARKS
Can I ask you, has it happened more than once?
BEN KISSEL
Yes, multiple times.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay.
BEN KISSEL
I do a little thing with my fingers, I go whoop, come on in!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
That's great, it's great.
BEN KISSEL
His brain is now the size of a small peanut. Or no, probably a little bit of a little tennis table thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
MARCUS PARKS
Ping pong? Ping pong ball?
BEN KISSEL
Thank you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jesus Christ.
MARCUS PARKS
Funny that you came up with the words table tennis before you came up with ping pong. That's the name of the game.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't wanna know. I don't wanna know the switchbacks of his thought process.
MARCUS PARKS
Well when Eddie Spreitzer was asked about this period of vulnerability when he met Robin, Eddie of course didn't take responsibility. He said quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"If someone had asked me at the time to be in porno movies or rob a bank or anything, I sure would have done it."
BEN KISSEL
Yeah but that's like totally different.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But again, I was a different guy.
MARCUS PARKS
I was a different guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If someone said hey, do you wanna play for the New York Mets? I would have been like yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If a guy said hey man, do you want to be on television? Do you want to be this dude? It's called MacGyver, do you wanna be MacGyver on this television show? Absolutely, I'll take time away from what I'm doing here at the electronics business and I would go and do that, yes.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cut off a pair of tits? Absolutely.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Okay, that's where you really wanna say no.
MARCUS PARKS
Now as opposed to the vast majority of serial killers who begin their experimentation phases outside of the home, doing it to strangers, Robin Gecht went against type and first tortured his wife which is doubly strange. Contrary to what you might assume, most married serial killers aren't physically abusive towards their wives.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's part of their cover story a lot of the times.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's some other weird game of like they get to live a normal life and then have their secret X life.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Robin however did not follow that pattern. And I'm gonna state that from this moment forward, this series is gonna be heavy, possibly even laser focused on the act of breast mutilation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't like it.
BEN KISSEL
No, I don't like it either.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I will say for you guys, because we get a lot of letters especially when it comes to animal violence, right. A lot of people are really upset, they don't like animal violence.
MARCUS PARKS
Don't worry, there's gonna be some of that in this episode.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
People get really mad. Great. And also some people get really upset about baby violence, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
People saying bad things, if you throw a baby out of a car, they get mad.
BEN KISSEL
Rightfully so, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you choke a baby with a bunch of rags, they get really mad.
BEN KISSEL
That would be very sad to do, wouldn't it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Stick a head of a baby into a paper shredder.
BEN KISSEL
There's a series of things you could do, yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everybody gets upset.
MARCUS PARKS
They don't like it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm really upset about the breast violence.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause breasts are my favorite.
BEN KISSEL
So this is your gold star episode.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I am offended.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
At your content. Because again I think breasts are the most pure, wonderful thing that bring us all together as a human family.
MARCUS PARKS
They do.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
They really are, it's universal.
BEN KISSEL
Fantastic.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Going through a bit of a breastaissance.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Are you? Oh yeah, we've been talking about this.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, we've been talking about it.
BEN KISSEL
That's great.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I never left.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, there you go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I added butts because I'm growing older.
BEN KISSEL
Nice. Oh my goodness.
MARCUS PARKS
That's nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sometimes I'll just look at a picture of a butt too.
MARCUS PARKS
Congratulations on growth.
BEN KISSEL
Oh of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's maturity.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. Everything's a pillow if you look at it like you're tired.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like remember the hammer if you're...
BEN KISSEL
Everything's a nail if you're a hammer.
MARCUS PARKS
It's nice. Now it's interesting that the moment in which Robin began exuberantly marching towards serial killer behavior is also the exact moment that he began bringing Eddie Spreitzer into the fold. See after Eddie worked for Robin for only 5 months, Eddie went to Robin's house to find that Robin had cut off his wife's nipples-
BEN KISSEL
What?
MARCUS PARKS
And had simply left her there to bleed.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is really fucked up.
MARCUS PARKS
The domestic violence against Rosemary is the worst I've ever heard of.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he slowly built up. I feel like we see people ramp up, we see serial killers ramp up their violence as they go. But normally it's outside, we talked about this.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's outside of the home. It's weird because it felt like he was getting truly comfortable with the violence with his family first.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Eddie took her to the hospital but before he could talk to the cops, Robin intercepted and told him that the crime could just as easily be pinned on Eddie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That does not even make sense. That's what you say to a moron.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Well I mean if there's one thing Robin Gecht was good at, it was stone faced lying. Robin also told Eddie that if he went to the cops, he'd show them pictures of Eddie and Rosemary having sex. Although I'm not sure if Eddie ever actually had sex with Rosemary.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
BEN KISSEL
It could be. It could be.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is like my mom got a spam email that was just like we've hacked into your accounts and we have nude pictures of you in the bathroom. My mom called me fucking hysterical, being like how did they get nude pictures of me?! How did they see me nude, Henry Thomas?! This is like 11am.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was like what are you talking about? She's like they sent an email! They have pictures of my breasts!
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I was like that's not possible. So again, this is how you lie to someone who doesn't know.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
It is interesting how you shoehorned that story in. Fernando brought up on Top Hat, a Roomba did take a picture of a chick taking a dump and put it online. So your mom, if your mom has a Roomba, your mom might be honestly, if that does happen...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll wait and see.
BEN KISSEL
I might have to pull a Tom Green and just paint your side of your house if there is a picture of your mom naked, just gonna paint your mother naked.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes of course. No, we can't have a Roomba because it scares Wendy.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it's weird.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I don't enjoy them.
BEN KISSEL
No. All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like it. I wish I had a little robot pet.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the thing is that Eddie maintained that the only sexual contact he had with Rosemary was the one time he applied lotion to her breasts while she was sunbathing topless.
BEN KISSEL
What is it Summer Rental with John Candy? Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It's 1979, man. Like shit's different.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's so interesting for Robin to do this crime and then he's just like you know I having you having sex together and I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna show the world about this. And then Eddie's just like you know the only time was the one time I just massaged your wife's breasts before she was sunbathing topless. So you could just see Robin going, you did what? What? I was lying. I cut those nipples off, I did that. We know that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was lying.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
And so faced with all the trouble Robin promised, Eddie not only agreed to keep the secret but he also continued to work with Robin professionally. He'd only been there for 5 months.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus. What did the doctor say? Where did your nipples go? Did you fall down? I mean don't the doctors be like they don't usually fall off.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They just did that.
MARCUS PARKS
Well most likely even with the blackmail, I think Eddie stuck around hoping that he might be included in a little of the old ultraviolence later on.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He liked it.
MARCUS PARKS
He loved it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think he liked it immediately.
MARCUS PARKS
Now we're gonna have a couple of big jumps in this story. Ben, you're already asking questions. And I'm not necessarily... Because you're saying like what did the cops do when the woman showed up with no nipples?
BEN KISSEL
What did the cops do when the woman showed up with no nipples?!
MARCUS PARKS
I don't fucking know.
BEN KISSEL
No, we don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
The book's not that well written.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it's not.
BEN KISSEL
Does it come with two plastic nipples?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, honestly those were incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because it's just nice to see what other kinds would look like on you.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that fun?
MARCUS PARKS
And Robin himself never confessed to any of his crimes. And the people who did confess to the crimes are fucking morons.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then half lying and then we don't know what's up or what's down. But I also wonder if it comes down to just straight up domestic violence at the time.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh. The worst.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If she did not want to press charges, if she didn't want to-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They might not have even just showed up. Because even she talks about how his obsession with her breasts got and hurting her breasts kept rising and getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he was like I want to see how they work, I want to see the inside of them and stuff.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Nothing tough, masculine, cool, whatever about domestic violence. You're a pussy and a bitch!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And if you are in there it's very tough.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Hopefully there's some resources out there to get you out.
MARCUS PARKS
Let's hope so. But what we do know is that after Robin cut off his wife's nipples, a steady stream of teenage girls began flowing through his house. These girls would party all night, sometimes they'd refuse to leave. But Rosemary was of course too terrified to protest.
BEN KISSEL
Right. So this is your Dean Corll kind of crossover.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's really weird because he's just inviting children over to hang out in the house and fuck and party and do all this kind of stuff.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And no one's saying anything, they're just kind of letting it rock. I think because they're already very scared of him.
BEN KISSEL
Weird.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But perhaps seeking to take this decadent lifestyle even further into the realm of the sadistic, Robin began customizing his roomy red Dodge work van to turn it into a mobile chamber of horrors designed specifically to commit torture murders.
BEN KISSEL
Well the problem here is Xzibit with the Pimp Your Ride, we have an application, this guy says that he's gonna want to make it a torture bus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we put a torture bus in your torture bus-
MARCUS PARKS
So you can torture bus while you torture bus.
BEN KISSEL
There you go.
MARCUS PARKS
In addition-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I had to, I had to complete the Xzibit... He did this to me, I had to complete the meme.
BEN KISSEL
You did.
MARCUS PARKS
In addition, his behavior in his personal life was also descending into the depths of decadence. Cutting the nipples off was only the beginning. See while Robin was married to Rosemary, he also had a girlfriend named Tina who had quite a bit to say about Robin's lifestyle leading up to the murders. While they were together for example, Robin was accused of raping a 15 year old girl at gunpoint.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus.
MARCUS PARKS
And Tina said he always had a wide variety of pills at his disposal that he would freely hand out if not force on others.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that would become his MO.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Tina also said that Robin was obsessed with Elvis and had amassed a huge collection of records, coffee cups, pictures, and other memorabilia that no one was allowed to touch but him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a true crossover star.
BEN KISSEL
Do not bring Elvis into this, my god. The king of Graceland!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Again, that's how big he was.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that's true.
MARCUS PARKS
When Tina asked Robin if he believed in god, he allegedly said quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(HENRY QUOTE) "I only believe in two things, myself and Elvis Presley."
BEN KISSEL
What the fuck is that?
MARCUS PARKS
But while Robin's obsession with Elvis was indeed strong, it paled in comparison to how much Robin was obsessed with large breasts, to the point where I would say that he was haunted by his obsession with large breasts.
BEN KISSEL
Buddy, you live in the Midwest, you can find them. That is what the Midwest is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it's craven, weird, childish in its obsession. And then we talk about it a lot in this where there's something about the people that do these extreme crimes have this sort of childlike, it's an immaturity that is diabolical.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know? Like it becomes-
BEN KISSEL
Scary.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's scary because it really is surface level obsessed wanting. Because apparently one thing keyed into his mind was that he had read stories about quote unquote "uncultured civilizations" using breasts as bags, literally like using them as like fucking, they would tan them and use them as holding bags.
MARCUS PARKS
As totes?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As totes. And he was like obsessed with shit like that. I like boobies but I like them on a woman.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No blood. On the inside, blood could be on the inside. And then I like it nice, I like it to be friendly. I like everyone to be happy with showing the boobs.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah. I like happy boobies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like happy boobies.
MARCUS PARKS
I like happy, where everyone's happy, it's all happy. They look happy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're all smiling. I have huge hits.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Real nice melons on you there. And of course, the boobie person is brought to you by boobalangzia.
MARCUS PARKS
Boobalingzia.
BEN KISSEL
Boobalengzia.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fernando, is that one of the new ads? Do we have Boobalangzia, is that the new like-
BEN KISSEL
Balenciaga.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh we are not advertised by Balenciaga.
BEN KISSEL
No, we are not.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this infatuation with large breasts, Robin said, he explained it away by saying that it was genetic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
He said, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"It's a thing with my entire family going back as I'm told to my great grandfather, each of us men have married large breasted women. My ex-wife is a 39 D and yes, she was very satisfying to me."
BEN KISSEL
Well okay. Why then? Okay, go on.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is weird. No, no.
BEN KISSEL
But then why does he hurt them? The boobies?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because he's fucked up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
And what was more, Robin was also obsessed with how breasts worked. When his girlfriend Tina became pregnant with Robin's third, fourth, maybe fifth child, Robin insisted that she let him watch her breastfeed after the baby was born so he could quote "see how the milk flowed into the breast".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See I don't know how that works. I don't know it works from the back but we kind of talked about it. But when you go out to dinner with someone who's got a baby and it's nice.
BEN KISSEL
You've talked about it, we haven't talked about it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They just snap out the boobies, they snap them out and they feed the baby. I know that that's societally correct and fine, that's normal, healthy, natural.
MARCUS PARKS
Totally.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I'm not allowed to look?
BEN KISSEL
No, you're not supposed to stare, no.
MARCUS PARKS
You're not supposed to stare, you're supposed to be-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I'm not staring but I look up. I wear sunglasses. I wear sunglasses.
BEN KISSEL
That's actually creepy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is that creepy?
MARCUS PARKS
You treat it like a salt shaker. When you're at dinner do you stop and stare at the salt shaker? Do you notice the salt shaker?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, a salt shaker's not open female breasts.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a salt shaker.
BEN KISSEL
It is different. It is different indeed, Henry. Yes. It is different. And then Henry does a mental face swap between he and the baby. And it's just Henry's face on the baby.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Tina said that for the longest time, all that Robin would talk about was breast this and breast that-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just saying, I don't always look!
BEN KISSEL
We know, Henry!
MARCUS PARKS
I know. We know. You don't always look.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't!
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
You don't always look, you don't make anyone uncomfortable.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I never do!
BEN KISSEL
Protest.
MARCUS PARKS
You're just saying that it's hard to ignore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes!
BEN KISSEL
Protest too much indeed.
MARCUS PARKS
I think so. I tried moving on and you are not letting-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a whole troubling episode.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And we're already making jokes.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Tina said that for the longest time, all he would talk about was breast this and breast that. But of course these conversations would take dark turns.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah I guess.
MARCUS PARKS
To that point, Robin was always after Tina to cut off her own nipples so he could see what was inside. He told her that sex workers did it for him all the time, what's the big deal?
BEN KISSEL
They cut off their nipples for him?
MARCUS PARKS
They cut off their nipples all the time, they did it all the time.
BEN KISSEL
No they didn't. I mean they just don't. No, they don't.
MARCUS PARKS
He said they did it all the time.
BEN KISSEL
No, they don't fucking grow back.
MARCUS PARKS
And he said if Tina wouldn't do it for him, he'd find someone who would, which is a contradiction because he just said that these sex workers cut off their nipples all the time for him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't think he's arguing in good faith.
BEN KISSEL
I don't think so either.
MARCUS PARKS
Well as far as where Robin wanted to have sex, it seems like he was taking his customized torture van for test drives of a sort with Tina, both in the coital fashion and in the torture fashion.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
When they'd have sex in the van as was Robin's preference, he'd chase her around and stick pins in her breasts because inflicting pain was the only way Robin could become turgid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It became, it really did, it became he had to inflict pain.
MARCUS PARKS
Had to, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To feel sexual involvement.
BEN KISSEL
On other people. If he wants to stick himself, whatever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You do whatever you want. And again, if someone likes it-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Then you do it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But not if they don't like it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, the old pin cushion there. That's not good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
His wife got it the worst. Tina said that one time she went over to Robin and Rosemary's house and noticed that Rosemary was pale and sweaty. When Tina asked her what was wrong, Rosemary lifted her blouse to show that Robin had stuck six hat pins into her breasts. And Rosemary said that Robin used to let her remove them until he said so. He'd injected novocaine into her breasts so the pain would be bearable enough for her to go about her day. But nevertheless, the wounds still bled constantly.
BEN KISSEL
Horrible.
MARCUS PARKS
Now naturally Rosemary was terrified of Robin to the point where she would actually confide, she was confiding in her husband's girlfriend.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Because she had no one else to talk to.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well he cut them off entirely, he cut the whole world off inside of this house. It really was, this is a world of nightmares.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Besides the further breast mutilation like lighting her breasts on fire after dousing them with lighter fluid, he would do extreme breast bondage, Robin also involved her in humiliating bestiality and animal cruelty.
BEN KISSEL
This is Toy-Box Killer shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude, this is one of the-
MARCUS PARKS
It's a different kind of bestiality.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wanna say this little section is one of the worst stories I've heard almost in our entire show.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Also why did you pitch that like a cult leader? It's a different kind of bestiality. You know? We're not like that anymore. It's a different kind of bestiality.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's just like crypto.
MARCUS PARKS
Curious?
BEN KISSEL
I am not curious.
MARCUS PARKS
Well on one occasion, Robin forced Rosemary to bring her parents' big dog over to their house. And this is what's so strange about it, this is so weird. He made Rosemary bring the dog over so he could have sex with it.
BEN KISSEL
(gagging)
MARCUS PARKS
Because he wanted to make her watch him have sex with the dog. And to prove that Robin did it when Rosemary told Tina about it, she had a pair of Robin's underwear that was like covered in dog hair.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(gagging)
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just feel that, I see Fernando frowning.
BEN KISSEL
Fucking Christ.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It really is so bad.
BEN KISSEL
I really hope he's getting beat up right now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He is. They are in solitary, they can't go out.
MARCUS PARKS
And later when that dog was about to have puppies, Robin dragged it to the basement, beat it to death with a baseball bat, and cut out the puppies so he could store them in jars of alcohol as a macabre decoration.
BEN KISSEL
And I do want to point out they were not his. They were not his.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You could tell, it's the hair color.
MARCUS PARKS
You can tell, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I do think we just went right from he fucked it to when it was ready to have puppies.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
There must have been something else there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) I never thought I could act this way, and I've got to say that I just don't get it.
BEN KISSEL
RIP Gordon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) I don't know where we went wrong, but the feeling's gone.
BEN KISSEL
What a tribute episode to Gordon Lightfoot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It really is. This is about the Gordon Lightfoot family.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Speaking of dead bodies, Robin would brag to Tina that he'd figured out a foolproof way to dispose of a body. He said that all you had to do was take the body to a cemetery where they'd already dug a grave. You go the night before a funeral.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So stupid.
MARCUS PARKS
Then you throw the body into the hole and cover the corpse with dirt. Then the next day the casket would be lowered on top of the victim-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Yeah. Wow!
MARCUS PARKS
And then the body would disappear forever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that right there, that's two burials in one. That's called a sale. Come on.
BEN KISSEL
It's the single stupidest idea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's the dumbest thing.
BEN KISSEL
And he's like that's smart. Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That right there, that's why I'm the leader.
BEN KISSEL
This is what is so scary about all the work, all the self improvement, everything we try to do as people. And then it's just morons.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Truly.
BEN KISSEL
It's all fucking Stephen Paddocks out there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dumb and mean is a truly powerful combination.
BEN KISSEL
That is true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because you don't care because if you are truly a fucking moron, you do not have very good impulse control. You also do not understand empathy is a learned skill and it's a thing you have to really sit and think about, you have to understand other people have perspectives that makes your life super complicated, it's not as simple as just everybody's meat walking around and you can do everything you want to them. Because again, you can make moves on somebody really hard because most people trust other human beings. So the mean quality also makes you truly dangerous because we want to trust other people.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But you know what is funny? Sometimes you're mean but you serve soup all saucy.
MARCUS PARKS
And then you're the Soup Nazi.
BEN KISSEL
And then they call you the Soup Nazi.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, the Soup Nazi.
BEN KISSEL
We took a picture with the actor who plays him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We did.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was very intoxicated.
BEN KISSEL
So were we.
MARCUS PARKS
But the fact remains that Robin was quite giddy talking about the prospect of getting rid of a body and he would indeed do something similar with one of the Ripper Crew's early victims, and it actually worked. Now before long, Robin's fantasies of actually killing someone began to inch their way into reality. And he wasn't at all concerned with who saw him doing it, nor was he concerned that anyone was going to turn him into the police. For example, he started building his own primitive torture tools. He built a poker that he constructed by affixing a hat pin to the end of a long broomstick. And he'd use that to chase around Tina, stabbing her, poking her.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus.
MARCUS PARKS
And she tried to throw it away but every time she threw it away, he'd just make another one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's weird though, right, about how she treated him like he was a child too.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They all kind of danced around him like he was a kid as well, treating this like these weren't serious. I know that they were and they were very scared. But just being like I threw away that torture tool of yours!
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then he went like well I'm gonna have to go make another one.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like it's his favorite recliner.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And I just searched hat pin and they are quite large.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're very large.
MARCUS PARKS
They're very big, yes. More disturbing however were Robin Gecht's homemade axes. Again using a length of broomstick, Robin would embed a thick triangular piece of glass, making a weapon that was both terrifying in its primitive appearance and surprisingly efficient in its execution. And tragically that first execution would occur in late May, 1981.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
3 years after the prosecution of John Wayne Gacy. So I think it's keeping us in this world.
BEN KISSEL
Gotchu.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Remember this is the height of serial killer panic in America.
BEN KISSEL
I wonder if he saw what John Wayne Gacy did and I wonder if he normalized it where he was like that just happens here in Chicago.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It might.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who knows?
MARCUS PARKS
Well again, we don't know how the idea was first brought up. But starting in 1981, Robin, Eddie, Tommy, and Andy started taking out Robin's red van into Chicago to pick up sex workers to assault. And eventually they would work their way up to murder. See after cruising around for a while, Robin would spot a sex worker on the street, always choosing a black woman because he presumably knew, just like Jeffrey Dahmer knew, that a black person's death would get a half-hearted investigation at best, especially in the early 80s. At first Eddie and Andy were the ones who would crawl into the back of the van and stay there, just before Robin picked up the potential victim. They'd then wait for two taps from Robin and at that moment they'd burst out the back doors and force the sex worker into the back of the van, immediately creating an atmosphere of terror.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Again, it's four on one.
BEN KISSEL
Chaos.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's absolutely horrible. It's horrible.
BEN KISSEL
Horrible. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Usually it was three on one, strangely enough.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, well every once in a while when Eddie would come around.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Or every once in a while when Tommy would come.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, Tommy, that's what I meant.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Tommy. Well ironically considering what eventually happened, Robin would assure Andy and Eddie each time that they wouldn't get in trouble for participating in these crimes. But once it was all said and done, they faced far more charges and were sentenced to far harsher punishments than what Robin ever received.
BEN KISSEL
Really?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Well he flipped on them. And then also there's this angle of, whether or not you believe it or not, that he thought that they were doing some form of magic ritual which is-
BEN KISSEL
Are they even smart enough for that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're gonna parse it out-
BEN KISSEL
These people don't seem smart enough to even read a magical book.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Next episode we're gonna parse all of that out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now the Ripper Crew claimed that the murders started before May of 1981. But in the first known murder, Andy and Robin were cruising north Chicago in the torture van when they pulled over and spoke with a sex worker named Linda Sutton who worked the area around Wrigley Field. After getting into the van, they drove her to a popular spot 30 miles away where sex workers could get the job done for an hourly fee, a place called either the Moonlit Motel or the Rip Van Winkle, depending on the source, I've heard two things.
BEN KISSEL
Rip Van Winkle is a very scary name for a hotel.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't the lore that he was like eating kids?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, nothing with Rip in it.
MARCUS PARKS
No!
BEN KISSEL
What the fuck is Rip Van Winkle again?
MARCUS PARKS
He slept too long.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Still, it sounds like he's dead. Sounds like I don't wanna be in a motel.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's the place where you sleep forever.
BEN KISSEL
Didn't he have golden hair or some shit?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
That is Rumpelstiltskin.
BEN KISSEL
I'm thinking Rumpelstiltskin. Rip Van Winkle just slept too long.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He slept too long.
MARCUS PARKS
He slept too long, yeah. He slept and he slept and he slept and when he woke up he had a big beard and it was like 200 years later and he was very sad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
What's the story?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That.
MARCUS PARKS
Don't sleep too long.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Don't sleep too long.
BEN KISSEL
Why? He lived.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No because you miss so much.
MARCUS PARKS
You miss everything.
BEN KISSEL
Who gives a fuck? What are we missing?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See, very interesting takes on tales.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. But either way, a third member of the Ripper Crew, Eddie Spreitzer, he was at the motel waiting. This was all pre planned.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh. This is like Devil's Rejects.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Linda immediately recognized that something was wrong here and she refused to get out of the van. But on Robin's orders, Andy and Eddie forced her out and while they held her down, Robin punched her in the face until she crumpled down. But instead of taking her into the motel, Robin and Eddie dragged Linda to a field behind the motel while Andy returned to the van and watched from the front seat. Now according to Andy's later confession, Eddie held Linda down while Robin raped her. Then Robin pulled out his homemade glass broomstick ax and struck Linda 3-4 times in the chest. He then took a length of piano wire and severed Linda's left breast before returning to Andy. The two of them left in the van while Eddie left in his own car. Of course leaving the corpse behind in the lonely field behind the Rip Van Winkle where it would stay until a housekeeper noticed the stench three days later.
BEN KISSEL
Do they take the breast as a prize?
MARCUS PARKS
We'll get to that in a bit.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now even though Linda Sutton's body had been exposed for just a few days, the large wounds inflicted on the chest in addition to the removal of the breast had allowed bacteria, parasites, and maggots to break down the tissue at an accelerated rate, giving the appearance that the body had been there for weeks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I was watching some old school old fashioned true crime docs about this. And they're all like mostly parasites enter through the mouth.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because it's already an open hole and they search their way through the anus to find their way to the sweet, sweet guts inside. And you're like all right, buddy. I know you're a hard dude.
BEN KISSEL
Enough. You're going too hard on it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know you like this.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I was watching a thing on when they find bodies, the people that go in and clean up the bodies.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And the woman that ran it, she's like we think those little bugs are like our best employees because it just takes one fly to lay some larvae and then they just eat the human flesh. She's like those are our best employees.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh good.
BEN KISSEL
Disgusting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Disgusting. Great.
MARCUS PARKS
It takes a smile.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It takes a smile!
BEN KISSEL
The way they talk like sometimes there's brain fragments but they just take care of those. Who let you in here?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When that person likes their job, I'm fine with it.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh god.
MARCUS PARKS
I love it. Somebody's gotta like it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Someone.
MARCUS PARKS
Now to be fair, this was not necessarily a DNI murder because police did investigate just a little. While the body was near skeletal, the arms were still bound by cheap handcuffs with a broken key still in the lock, which is a detail Andy Kokoraleis missed. Additionally, a strip of cloth had been stuffed in the mouth presumably to muffle any screaming. And while there were no shoes on the body, there were still socks and stuffed inside those socks was the sum of $13.
BEN KISSEL
Why didn't they take the money?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause it wasn't a robbery.
MARCUS PARKS
It wasn't a robbery, they didn't care.
BEN KISSEL
Interesting.
MARCUS PARKS
And they also probably didn't know that there was 13 bucks in her socks.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now once detectives couldn't find any missing persons reports that fit the description of the body, they rightfully pegged her as a murdered sex worker, which as we know this happened fairly often, very often, extremely often in the 70s and 80s. And eventually she was identified by fingerprints and dental records. But they were somewhat puzzled that she had money because carrying money made a prostitution charge much more likely should the cops catch a woman in the act. But, this is a fun part, some sex workers had systems in place for getting around such an inevitability.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
For example, a Chicago legend named Mailbox Marilyn, she would ingeniously carry-
BEN KISSEL
That's my wife.
MARCUS PARKS
She would ingeniously carry self addressed stamped envelopes. And before she performed her services, she'd get paid, take the money, put it in the envelope, and drop it in the mailbox and then go do the business.
BEN KISSEL
Boom!
MARCUS PARKS
Because if she didn't have any money on her and she got caught in the act, she couldn't be charged with prostitution.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
She'd just get charged with public indecency.
BEN KISSEL
There you go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a picture of her right there.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When she was panhandling on the street.
BEN KISSEL
Let's take a look there. Oh wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She looks happy.
BEN KISSEL
Well you know a smile can tell a lot. But not necessarily always happy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They used to know her as Crazy Mary.
MARCUS PARKS
Crazy Mary.
BEN KISSEL
Oh good for her.
MARCUS PARKS
Now one thing we know about serial killers is that there's usually a pretty extensive cooling off period between the first and second murders. Sometimes it's 6 months, sometimes a year, sometimes it's 5 years. And that cooling off period often gets shorter as the killer commits more murders. But the speed in which the Ripper Crew moved on to victims two and three implies that either a group dynamic shortens the cooling off period or that Robin Gecht had been murdering on his own long before he brought Eddie, Tommy, and Andy into the fold.
BEN KISSEL
Is it possible that you just start berserker? After he's been torturing his wife and maybe he-
MARCUS PARKS
Sometimes. Every once in a while.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's been living a life of sexual depravity.
MARCUS PARKS
True.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So if you have been... And those dudes, they've been joining in. I think that's a part of it.
MARCUS PARKS
With Rosemary?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe other women, other sex workers, all of them kind of slowly. I think he was slowly, in my mind he was raising them up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was training them. So the three of them kind of came along with him, did some stuff, fucked around, and it wasn't until they started, that's the reason why... But they compartmentalized, where like well we weren't murderers until we started doing it. But they had been talking about it and building it up and building it up. That's my feeling.
MARCUS PARKS
See just a month after killing Linda Sutton, Eddie and Robin picked up another black woman, a woman who is to this day unidentified, she was a hitchhiker. They gave her some pills.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was the new MO was that you give them pills first.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So they start to get tired and disoriented up top.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
So they can't even do it three on one natty.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
They have to cheat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They have to cheat.
MARCUS PARKS
They gave her some pills, they took her to a cemetery, pulled her out of the van, and beat her with a baseball bat. Eddie then returned to the car but Robin stayed behind. And 5 minutes later, Robin returned with one of the woman's severed breasts.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
That's when he starts taking trophies.
BEN KISSEL
That's when he starts. So the other... Oh my god. All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And this is also I guess this is the main reason why Chris Evans actually said no to the movie.
BEN KISSEL
Is that right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because he said something about this. Because a lot of them were like we gotta leave in the return with the breast scene.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because he was fighting for that, Chris Evans really wanted it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he really was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And a lot of the producers fought.
BEN KISSEL
Are they making a movie on this?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, absolutely not. It's unfilmable.
BEN KISSEL
They're not, okay. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well about a month after that, Robin was giving Eddie a ride home to pick up his paycheck at Winchell's Donut House where Eddie worked part time.
BEN KISSEL
What's with the bakeries? Can we leave the bakeries alone?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean it was just good working for people that need... It's easy training.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Killers and sweets. I'm telling you, man.
MARCUS PARKS
You know what's interesting? Winchell's Donut House, there's none in Chicago anymore but here in LA there's 20.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
There's 20?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We have an ornamental donut economy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I've never seen anyone eat a donut here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No one's eating donuts.
MARCUS PARKS
I eat donuts all the fucking time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You do because you are wasting. Everybody else doesn't because they're all constantly afraid of sugar.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And anything that could possibly change their body in any way, shape, or form.
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) I like my Yum Yum Donuts, give me my Yum Yum Donuts.
BEN KISSEL
Okay well that's very weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just see you covered in blood, I see you standing outside with the red van.
BEN KISSEL
I just feel like it's like when the Ghostbusters get their first call and they're like what, the phone's ringing? Like all of those are just pipelines for fentanyl. And you're the only person that ever buys donuts from them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh you want donuts? And then they gotta go run out and get them.
BEN KISSEL
What is this, a donut store? Oh goddamnit.
MARCUS PARKS
Well instead of picking up Eddie's paycheck at Winchell's Donut House, the two psychopaths spotted another black woman hitchhiking. So Robin told Eddie to climb back into the rear of the van. The woman was then picked up unaware that there was a guy in the back and Robin drove her to a forest preserve. When Robin stopped the car in a suitably secluded area, he tapped twice on the floor of the van, signaling Eddie to exit through the back to meet Robin up front with a knife and a pair of handcuffs.
BEN KISSEL
It's like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is.
BEN KISSEL
Where they hit the cane on the ground to get Leatherface.
MARCUS PARKS
Yup. This second hitchhiker, also never identified, was handcuffed and led into the woods by Robin alone. And when he returned five minutes later, he was again in possession of a severed breast. These trophies by the way would be kept in Robin's van on the floor between the seats.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god. What is that smell? Ugh.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean to keep the van from reaching a Randy Kraft level of gore, because remember Randy Kraft's car was quite bloody-
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Robin kept a 5 gallon bucket and some dish soap around to clean up after every murder. Presumably this was because Robin, he was still using the van every day for his business.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it was a business expense.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the Ripper Crew went almost a year before their next murder, following that three month, three kill spree in 1981. But when they returned in May of 1982, they killed at least 15 people in less than 6 months.
BEN KISSEL
Holy shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's horrifying.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And a fair share of them had nothing to do with the sex trade.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And again, you really see it's interesting that there has been so little coverage. As we were doing this episode, we have the book, but even the book as we said is spotty at best. And we were putting together whatever court transcripts we could find, all that kind of information, putting it all together. And it's just crazy to think they really were terrifying Chicago for a year.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And no one did anything.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I'd argue against it, no one knew it was happening.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I guess they just didn't talk about it.
MARCUS PARKS
They didn't talk about it. And we'll talk in the next episode, we'll begin the next episode as to partly why it wasn't talked about.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
The other story that was kind of taking all the oxygen out of the room.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, what they said was.
MARCUS PARKS
What they said was, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But there was another big true crime story taking the oxygen out of the room.
BEN KISSEL
It was the curse of the Cubs!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They were really concerned with the Cubs.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that goal should have been let in!
MARCUS PARKS
But they were also hiding the bodies fairly well most of the time.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Their fourth murder-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's four people working on it!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So it's not like it's one guy doing the action and then you deal with the fallout after you've done it. It's like you got a team of guys working to hide them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And it's also four people, at any moment one of them could have been like this ain't right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Their fourth murder, it wasn't connected to the Ripper Crew at all until Eddie Spreitzer later confessed it everything. Because the police had no body until Eddie told them where it was. At this point, this fourth murder, the police thought it was a missing person's case, this woman just disappeared.
BEN KISSEL
That happens, they just disappear.
MARCUS PARKS
Now details are scant but from what we can piece together, Robin, Eddie, and Tommy, and this was Tommy's first time out by the way-
BEN KISSEL
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
They saw 21 year old Lorraine Borowski walking to her job as a secretary at a local RE/MAX real estate office at 8:30 AM in the wealthy Chicago suburb of Elmhurst. After following her into her office where she was the first to arrive that day, the Ripper Crew grabbed her and dragged her to the van, then took her to a nearby motel where a gag was stuffed in her mouth and the beating began. Now while Eddie claimed to have been nothing more than a voyeur up to this point, Tommy said that both Robin and Eddie raped her before Eddie took out a 3 foot length of piano wire. It was wrapped around Lorraine's breast and tightened until the appendage was severed. Taking the depravity even further, Eddie and Robin then had sex with the wound in Lorraine's chest.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh god.
MARCUS PARKS
Then Robin used his glass ax to finish the job. The body was then taken to a cemetery in Clarendon Hills where the Ripper crew hid the remains in a mausoleum. And the corpse would stay there until Eddie told the police where to look.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. Ugh. Yuck.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it was really scary, the way she was yanked off the street was also extremely terrifying.
MARCUS PARKS
Well she was yanked out of her office.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, like she was already technically like safe, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they went and got her. And this is where the Ripper name comes from.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it's ones of the reasons why it hasn't really been covered that much is because every one of these crimes involved this form of mutilation.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. And it gets even worse from here. Now on the day of the kidnapping and murder of Lorraine Borowski, it was obvious to her boss when he walked in that something terrible had happened in the office. Lorraine's shoes were on the floor, cosmetics were strewn about the office, her keys were left behind. And police questioned nearby business owners. And in fact one store owner in the same shopping plaza had a vague memory of a reddish-orange van parked in an area of the parking lot that was normally empty.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that was the very first seed.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of anybody knowing who these guys were.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now that was a solid lead because it was indeed the van that the Ripper Crew drove. But instead of following that trail, the cops listened to the guy who owned the nearby liquor store because he said that he had seen Lorraine that morning getting into a car. He said I saw Lorraine, she got into a car, the car drove off, but I can't remember what kind of car it was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So ridiculous.
MARCUS PARKS
All I know is that it's a car.
BEN KISSEL
Was he sipping on his own supply?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. But she was literally taken out of her own shoes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She didn't get into a car.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. So the detective on the case brought in another detective who also happened to be a certified hypnotist.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right.
BEN KISSEL
Wait, now what's going on here?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This guy. Some guys have multi skills. But it is strange and it's kinda scary if you met a detective that was also a hypnotist.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It does feel like a television show.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it does.
BEN KISSEL
It does. I just watched a Murder She Wrote episode, which I always catch the new episodes, and the hypnotist did it by hypnotizing somebody to kill.
MARCUS PARKS
That's cool.
BEN KISSEL
It was cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I love Murder She Wrote.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh it's the best show ever.
MARCUS PARKS
It's wonderful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wish it was Murder She Writes because then it would be more present.
BEN KISSEL
It would be, wouldn't it now? No, she's not dead! Angela Lansbury is still with us.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes she is. Is she?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I think so.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think she's recently dead.
BEN KISSEL
No she's not.
MARCUS PARKS
I think she died like last year.
BEN KISSEL
Nah. No, I just watched her new show.
MARCUS PARKS
Pretty sure she died last year.
BEN KISSEL
I just watched her new show yesterday.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, she died on October 11th. Yeah, she died.
MARCUS PARKS
She died last year.
BEN KISSEL
What?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She was pulled apart by a bunch of golden retrievers.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no kidding!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's unbelievable.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can't believe they put a corpse-
BEN KISSEL
Mystery solved.
MARCUS PARKS
New show, I think Murder She Wrote ended in 1994.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but it's new to him.
BEN KISSEL
It's new to me.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this hypnotist came in and after supposedly digging into the liquor store owner's subconscious-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Deeper and deeper.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, get out of here.
MARCUS PARKS
The detective was told that Lorraine Borowski had definitely gotten into a sports car.
BEN KISSEL
Shut the-
MARCUS PARKS
Either a Thunderbird or a Cougar.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She was just so excited that she was like I've got to go! She kicked her shoes off, she threw her stuff everywhere. I gotta get in that car!
BEN KISSEL
She's rolling out to America's greatest diners, drive-ins, and dives.
MARCUS PARKS
No, I mean a Thunderbird is the exact opposite of a red Dodge van.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, it's the opposite.
BEN KISSEL
No, this guy really fucked it up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It didn't help.
MARCUS PARKS
yeah. Well the investigation went nowhere.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
Because they didn't-
BEN KISSEL
So the liquor store guy fucked it up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You gotta understand, the nice thing about this guy is that he helped me quit smoking. That's what I love.
BEN KISSEL
Hypnotism, now I get it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, hypnotist.
BEN KISSEL
So yes, he did derail an investigation that could have saved multiple lives.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. But listen, he's got my wife barking like a dog every time it's her birthday.
BEN KISSEL
There you go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love this guy.
BEN KISSEL
Hypnotism, huh?
MARCUS PARKS
But even though the Ripper Crew had taken a year between murders, 3 and 4, murders 5-20 would occur-
BEN KISSEL
God.
MARCUS PARKS
Would occur in a short 6 month period that was barely covered by the press.
BEN KISSEL
Holy shit.
MARCUS PARKS
In addition, the crew themselves would begin dabbling in rituals and cannibalism. And that's where we'll pick back up next time for the conclusion to our series on the Chicago Rippers.
BEN KISSEL
Oh great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is some old school heavy hitter territory. It's been a long time since we've been here.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sometimes I do flash back to a 2014 version of what I would say.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's crazy.
BEN KISSEL
Of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This crime series got no coverage really.
MARCUS PARKS
None.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As you could see why, it's a bit difficult.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah but that's why it needs to be fucking covered.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what we say.
MARCUS PARKS
Well I mean every once in a while when I was googling a couple of stories on it-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well Satanic murderers comes up all the time.
MARCUS PARKS
Satanic murderers always comes up.
BEN KISSEL
I don't think they're smart enough to be Satanic murderers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We'll get to it.
MARCUS PARKS
We'll get to it. But there is every once in a while a Chicago station will say like the infamous Chicago Rippers.
BEN KISSEL
Oh Mancow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Mancow.
BEN KISSEL
Mancow in the morning. Welcome to Mancow in the morning folks, I'm not woke, Chicago Rippers were right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no.
BEN KISSEL
Mancow, bad take.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You'd lose some advertisers.
MARCUS PARKS
You would.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe. All right, well thank you all much for listening. Hope you are surviving.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Do we have anything to say? Let's see. So we got our comic book.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Last Comic Book on the Left III.
BEN KISSEL
The coffee.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Preorder it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Spring-Heel'd Jack coffee, go get some.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's z2comics.com, get the comic books. Spring-Heel'd Jack coffee, we got a new coffee line coming out very soon, we've been talking about it. We are working on the art right now.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
T-shirts, go to lastpodcastmerch.com. Many more things than just T-shirts, we have a whole merch store there, lots of merch, we're merch people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, if you're naked, you can get fully clothed.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You can get fully clothed there. And yeah, keep supporting all the shows on the network.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. And then do you want to come and see us in Australia? We have Wednesday, August 2nd Auckland, New Zealand. August 4th Adelaide, Australia. August 6th Brisbane. August 7th Melbourne. August 10th Sydney. And August 12th Perth. We're gonna come see you fucking weirdos on the other side of the goddamn planet.
BEN KISSEL
Unfortunately the Cherry Tavern is closed so don't get your cocaine fix or your sticky floor fix, it's not happening anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well I heard in Melbourne, I heard it moved.
BEN KISSEL
It moved. But the OG is closed.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And No Dogs in Space season 3 premiering on May 18th.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yay!
BEN KISSEL
Ooh, who are you covering?
MARCUS PARKS
Covering The Monks, my friend. You'll love them.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I'll get you into it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. You'll like The Monks.
BEN KISSEL
I love them.
MARCUS PARKS
You'll get into it, you'll love it.
BEN KISSEL
I love The Monks!
MARCUS PARKS
You love The Monks. You've heard The Monks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love The Monks.
MARCUS PARKS
I've forced you to listen to The Monks before and you said you liked it.
BEN KISSEL
I love it. All right everyone, thank you for listening. Hail yourselves!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail Satan.
MARCUS PARKS
Hail Gein!
BEN KISSEL
Megustalations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail me, child. Sweet little child, sweet baby girl child. I've been watching a lot of this fucking... I'm sorry, I'll get into it.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a 67 year old and a 25 year old.
BEN KISSEL
Oh they're dating.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they're celebrating. And they have an OnlyFans.
BEN KISSEL
Yay!
MARCUS PARKS
They have an OnlyFans account together.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it's a whole thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they don't do anal because she's got problems with her back, she's got problems with her butt.
MARCUS PARKS
With her butt?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's 67 years old.
MARCUS PARKS
I also can't do anal.
BEN KISSEL
Let's move on! Bye!
MARCUS PARKS
The bleeding anus, can't put anything up there.
BEN KISSEL
All right.